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Intro 1998 1999 2000 2001

Thursday saw my 39th birthday come and go, thanks to all for the cards and pressies. On Saturday Cath and I went and bought some tennis racquets with some birthday money, so we were off on court on Saturday and Sunday evening. All with the aim of getting a bit more exercise together. We're even thinking about taking up golf (again on my part, for the second time). Only trouble is that requires us to get rid of the kids while we play, but the tennis courts are next to the play area, so everyone is (mostly) happy.

It's probably worth memntioning at this point that over here the public parks have facilities you don't normamlly see in the UK. Most parks have a baseball field or two, complete with stands for a crowd to watch (all those doting parents, no doubt), and some with lights. Some parks have tennis courts, which are very good. The big thing is that they don't even cost anything. I don't think I've ever lived anywhere with public tennis courts available at no charge. They don't seem to be used much, either. Good fun it is too.

On Sunday we watched the World Cup final, with Colin booing and me cheering! Good to see France win, and another team lift the trophey. They fully deserved it, and have played some good soccer throughout. So, it's all over for another 4 years. Depression has set in already...

We have new neighbors in both downstairs apartments. We'll be glad when we get moved into the new house, it should be a bit more peaceful. What with kids and dogs and cats it's been quite rowdy over the past week or so.

One of the gifts the kids gave me for my birthday is the 'Fred Book'. If you've read my television & radio page you'll have heard me go on about the Imus in the Morning show, hosted by Don Imus. Well, this is a book by his brother Fred, who also features in the show. It's a book of bits and pieces on his brother, Don, his business, The Auto Body Express, politics, women and other subjects. It's all totally irreverent and definitely not PC.

As part of a birthday present to myself I went round to the music store in Salem and bought 5 Led Zeppelin CDs, mostly replacements for the vinyl versions of the albums. I'm really suffering with no record deck and can't wait to get somme of the older albums played again. I was looking at the last Rush CD we bought in the UK and it still has the price sticker on it, which shows 15.79GBP. Here that would cost about $14, roughly 8-9GBP. Scandalous, isn't it? The same goes for a lot of things here. As another example, a Mercedes E320, with full leather, auto, AC and all the gubbin's is about $45k. In the UK it's about the same in pounds. What has me puzzled is how Jaguars and Landies can work out cheaper here than where they are built!

And that's really the highlights for this week. Now the WC is over I'll be able to get out of work earlier (I used to watch the games at lunchtime). We'll probably try to play some tennis some evenings, and with the soccer on Saturdays I should be getting a fair amount of exercise. I'll be fading away to a mountain any time soon... ;)

Well, that's enough for this week. I'll catch you all next week.